A Tory MP has complained that was forced to borrow money from his mum and dad because the Commons expenses watchdog is trying to "screw [MPs] into the ground".

Karl McCartney, the 42-year-old MP for Lincoln, told the BBC's World at One programme on Wednesday he had to ask his parents for at least £25,000.

He claims the money was needed to pay staff after Ipsa, the parliamentary standards body, took five months to pay his expenses claims.

He said: "That sum of money is a huge sum of money and that was all the money that I'd had to spend out for whatever, for my staff, for staff salaries, and that was owed by Ipsa.

"Well my staff as well as myself have to live. We've got mortgages to pay, we've got families to look after and provide for."

McCartney, who earns £65,738 a year as an MP, added that the situation was common in Westminster.

He said: "At the age of 42 I’m not proud of the fact I had to go to my mother and father and ask them if they could help me out because our credit cards, our loans at the bank were all maxed out and I wasn’t the only Member of Parliament that had to do that.

McCartney's relationship with Ipsa came under the spotlight last month when he was forced to apologise calling one member of staff a "pedantic SOAB" and accusing another of "talking shit".

He said: "Those comments came from the frustration of having to deal with an organisation that really is incompetent and certainly when we were first elected and there was a huge new number of MPs that were elected, but I found myself well into five figures – the money that I was owed by IPSA for over five months."

McCartney also described a meeting with a senior Ipsa official.

He said: "He basically said that he and his fellow senior management team at Ipsa, when they go to the pub on a Friday night and meet with their friends, their friends tell them that they should screw MPs into the ground and [he said] that’s what he was going to do."